Topic: The relationship between parenting and separation anxiety in early childhood
Introduction:
Separation from parents is an important course for every child. Of course, it is natural for children to feel anxious because it is the first time in their lives to learn how to say goodbye to their parents. Separation anxiety is a normal stage in human development. Understanding some strategies can help parents and children to handle separation anxiety more easily.
Besides, high parental control on children is likely to be associated with increased opportunity of getting separation anxiety (Wood J, 2006). Different parenting styles also increase the chance to develop anxiety experiences. (Wood J, 2006) However, separation anxiety symptoms
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Children may often get a cold, fever, stomach pain and other physical responses. Parents themselves can also play a part in causing separation anxiety. Sometimes, parents would be too worried about the safety issues. This makes their children very afraid of getting into an accident when they are separated from their parents. As a result, they may become reluctant to go to school or kindergarten. Also, they may not take the initiative to contact other children. Separation anxiety is a normal stage of development, but it can lead to serious emotional problems which are characterized by extreme pain when the child is being away from parents or primary caregivers.
Normal separation anxiety and separation anxiety disorder share many common symptoms. The difference is that children with separation anxiety disorder will have greater fear towards separation from their parents and such fear will continue to interfere with their normal activities. It is not uncommon for caregivers to overlook the separation anxiety of their children. Some caregivers view it as an excuse for not going to school or playing with friends. Such misunderstanding may aggravate the anxiety symptoms, resulting in separation anxiety
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Children with parents who act intrusively have few opportunities being away from their parents. Separation from parents is a new situation to them. They may feel threatened and become highly anxious because they find themselves unable to do anything by their own.
Luckily, their anxiety level can be immediately reduced once they return to their closest caregiver. However, some children will still be terrified afterwards. When they encounter similar situations again, they remember the unhappy experience of being part from their parents so they will try everything such as clinging to their parents and throwing tantrums to avoid separation.
According to the theoretical model, intrusion is expected to lay the foundation for separation anxiety, but not necessarily other forms of typical childhood anxiety (such as social anxiety, generalized anxiety ). Some researchers suggested parental anxiety is another factor that may be associated with intrusiveness.(Wood.J 2006). Recent studies have shown that certain types of parent-child interaction patterns are related to anxiety disorder